Monthly Archives: March 2011

Finding and Keeping Needed Talent

Posted on by Bill Ryan

One of the greatest challenges for employers the world over is locating, hiring, and retaining employees who bring highly productive value to their companies and organizations. Such employees are, of course, the lifeblood of any successful workforce. The employer who establishes the means of recruiting and properly managing the right talent represents quality leadership within a winning enterprise. 

For the most part, there is a broad and deep talent pool to fill many job positions. If anything, the Recession has added available workforce capacity eager to be found and employed. The industry areas that seem most deficient in expertise are engineering and intermediate to advanced levels of IT. Even in recent years, these have been under resourced areas. This lack of strength probably will not improve until we do a better job of attracting and educating more young people to STEM careers or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. However, outside of STEM careers vast talent shortages do not appear to be the case. Nevertheless, matching skills with where they are needed continues to be a perennial and daunting challenge. 

The best recruiters know where to go to find the most competent. They are well-connected, expertly networked, and a constant presence at tried-and-true feeder sources, such as schools and certain businesses. Getting and paying for high caliber recruiting and staffing services is certainly an option for companies seeking candidates for open positions. But the question emerges, can employers do more for themselves internally and procedurally to keep the flow of talent inbound and the loss of talent minimized? 

Yes, employers can do more. Now, rather than present the readers with a bulleted list of techniques, I would like to focus an answer to the above question toward a more fundamental management and human virtue…kindness. Anecdotally, I hear it all the time from smart, experienced, hard-working, people — the single biggest reason why people do not like their jobs is because of poor management. I am not talking about managerial weaknesses that can be simply remedied with some training. This issue is much larger. It involves management’s use of intimidation, fear, inflexibility, weak ability to communication, and overall poor soft or people skills. 

Nothing will drive talent away more effectively than by having in place leadership that either practices, encourages, or allows for an abusive work environment. In fact, there is a Healthy Workplace Bill, which has been introduced into twenty state legislatures since 2003. In New Hampshire, this bill known as HB 1403 was introduced and let die in committee in 2010. 

In this day of interactive social media does anyone really think that word is not getting out loud and clear about where employees should not work if they want respect from their boss? Talent will be drawn to companies and organizations where smart and self-motivated employees can develop as professionals. Places with vision that encourage exploration and innovation, where decision-making results from a collaborative process. But at their core, those companies that establish as a cultural foundation respect and kindness will find talent wanting to stay. Consequently, by noticing the strengths and benefits each person can bring to the job and actively cultivating them yields positive results for any business.  

Effective leadership can bring about the kind of work climate which attracts and retains talent. Unfortunately, talented leaders are hard to find. Peter Drucker, the godfather of modern management theory, said that the two most important attributes of leadership are self-awareness and honesty. Practicing those virtues in combination with a basic decency for fellow colleagues would seem to be a good place to start.  

The best and brightest employees are not interested in heavy-handed rules, imposed methodologies, and stay-in-line-or-else tactics. Developing a talented workforce begins with collegial trust and a humane attitude. 

Four Ways To Improve Your Resume

Posted on by Bill Ryan

So, let’s assume that you have not yet started on that New Year’s resolution of rewriting your resume, which of course assumes that you made a New Year’s resolution to rewrite your resume. (You did, didn’t you?). Having a current and well written resume is the single best thing you can do for yourself, if you are thinking about transitioning to another job or career, or if you are trying to get back into the workforce after a too-long layoff. 

As is the case with many such tasks that can be easily dropped down one’s priority list, the hardest part is simply getting started. Once you do pull out that old resume you may find that the rewrite job looks to be about as much fun as doing taxes. Then there is the question of what needs to be done to make your resume a winning one. Is it just updating the contact information and work history, or is there more to it than that? This is a writing exercise that can be daunting and frustrating. You may find yourself thinking of postponing this resolution until next year. 

To help make your resume rewriting a little easier I am going to focus on what needs to be done to make it very readable to hiring managers and recruiters, who are the types of people most likely to look over your resume someday. Think of them as your audience. Know their world. It consists of lots of scheduling, running reference and background checks, conducting interviews, debriefing clients or managers, communicating with their network, and all under constant time pressure.  

They do not have the time or interest to read your autobiography, nor will they be attracted to a boring chronology of your past jobs with nothing substantial to set you apart from the vast crowd. You have got about fifteen seconds to make a good first impression. Consider the following questions when rewriting your resume: 

  • What is your functional and industry expertise? Do not make the reader have to infer your skills by looking at work history. Have a lead section or summary that quickly informs and emphasizes what value and talent you would bring to the employer. Categorizing core competencies and special technical skills prior to any list of previous jobs will allow you to be in or out of the hiring ballpark in a hurry. 
  • Where are you on the work-level hierarchy? It should be established very quickly if you are a laborer, assistant, manager, executive, or contracting consultant. This can be highlighted in the lead summary and by bolding or capitalizing current and previous job titles. You need to make it easy for the reader to position you where you want to be positioned. 
  • What have you been up to for the past ten or twelve years? A clearly written chronology of your most recent and relevant past employment should be displayed. And yes, gaps in your work history are a problem. Not what laid-off workers want to hear, I know. So, what can be done about employment gaps? Hopefully, you will be able to show that you tried to remain current and viable with your profession while you were out of work or caring for an ill or elderly family member. Perhaps, you received further education and training, or volunteered and maybe interned, to continue maintaining and developing expertise. Also, in most cases, what you did before, say 1998, is not going to be that important to someone hiring in 2011. 
  • What have been your significant accomplishments? In this chronicle of your employment there should be points about what you have done that has made a real contribution. Refer to tangible measures like revenue and profit increases, lead generations and conversions, savings in costs or resources, or anything else that shows you have improved processes. Think of it as compiling your greatest hits. 

You may not be successful with all your New Year’s resolutions, but if you can get this one right, it just may be enough to make 2011 the year of positive change you hoped it would be.